Brian McKinley
MFF Casting Instructor
Brian McKinley left for parts unknown the morning of Tuesday, February 27, 2024. I have never known a kinder, more generous man. Brian was one of the group of guys who taught this class when I took it back in 1990. He's now the second of that group to have passed. Sadly, even though I knew him for 34 years, we never fished together. How can that even be?
When I spoke with him on the phone a couple of weeks ago, we chatted about this class that he (and eventually I) helped teach. He was tickled that the class was going well, and that it was still evolving.
You couldn't have asked for - and would have struggled to find - a better fly casting instructor than Brian. He had a unique way of helping neophytes understand the mechanics of the cast, and how to help them when they struggled. This knack was born of his profession as a teacher in the Minneapolis public school system. A whole generation of fly fishers owe their knowledge and love of fly fishing to Brian McKinley.
Rest easy, Brian... your work here is done and you are reunited with your beloved Kathy. Enjoy those trout streams, smallmouth rivers, and salt flats of the Great Beyond.
-Ed Estlow, for the Minnesota Fly Fishers
When I spoke with him on the phone a couple of weeks ago, we chatted about this class that he (and eventually I) helped teach. He was tickled that the class was going well, and that it was still evolving.
You couldn't have asked for - and would have struggled to find - a better fly casting instructor than Brian. He had a unique way of helping neophytes understand the mechanics of the cast, and how to help them when they struggled. This knack was born of his profession as a teacher in the Minneapolis public school system. A whole generation of fly fishers owe their knowledge and love of fly fishing to Brian McKinley.
Rest easy, Brian... your work here is done and you are reunited with your beloved Kathy. Enjoy those trout streams, smallmouth rivers, and salt flats of the Great Beyond.
-Ed Estlow, for the Minnesota Fly Fishers